From: Robert Dober <robert.dober@...>
Date: 2007-04-09T19:22:54+09:00
Subject: Re:

On 4/9/07, John Joyce <dangerwillrobinsondanger@gmail.com> wrote:
> Why does this seem to sort ascending alphabetical?
>
> puts ({ :shoe_size => 29.5, :name => 'Fred', :age => 10, :size =>
> 'L' }).to_s
>
>
> sizeLshoe_size29.5nameFredage10

I'll handle this in two parts:
First what you are doing:
Actually all you are doing is
puts ({ :shoe_size => 29.5, :name => 'Fred', :age => 10, :size =>
'L' })

The to_s applied to the return value of puts, which is nil is the
empty string which is discarded.

I guess that you want to get a nice representation of the hash, try
 puts( { :shoe_size => 29.5, :name => 'Fred', :age => 10, :size => 'L'
}.inspect )

Please note that there should not be any spaces bewteen "puts" and "("
as this is deprecated.

Now what you were asking:
The order of the string representation of a Hash is defined as the
order of the Hash, which means it is not. It is completely up to the
interpreter how to iterate over a hash, how to convert it to an array
or to a string.
AFAIK these operations could even be inconsistent if that suited an interpreter.

Use this hash to see that it is not necessarily in alphabetic descending order
{:a=>42, :b=>43, :c=>44}, but be aware that it might be if you use a
different interpreter than I do
irb(main):036:0> RUBY_VERSION
=> "1.8.5"

Cheers
Robert



-- 
You see things; and you say Why?
But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not?
-- George Bernard Shaw